The love of the world, a book of religious meditation

THE

}ftOVE OF THE ^JXORLD

A BOOK OF RELIGIOUS MEDITATION

MARY EMILY CASE

Vf^&tmii

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1892

Copyright, 1892, by
The Century Co.

GIFT

W '" ' - " ■

APR 2 11946
THE UNARY OF ttNttESS

THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW-Vi

TO

G. 1R- 5.

ONE WHO HAS TAUGHT ME, BY AN OLD AGE
BRIGHTER AND MORE FULL OF SIMPLE GLAD-
NESS AND OF POWER TO HELP THAN ANY YOUTH
CAN BE, WHAT CHRISTIAN FAITH AND HOPE AND
LOVE CAN MAKE OF HUMAN LIFE ON EARTH.

PREFACE

This book is neither theological nor argu-
mentative. It is not a systematic treatment of
any theme, but merely, as is indicated in the
title, a jotting down of scattered thoughts,
grouped under more or less appropriate head-
ings. If to any the word " religious " seem
misapplied, the writer can only appeal to her
own strong conviction that there is nothing
which is not, or may not be, religious, sin only
excepted.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I The Love of the World n

II Not Conformed to this World 17

III The Dandelions 20

IV A Shallow Optimism 23

V Gain and Loss 28

VI Youth and Age 31

VII In the Orchard 34

VIII By the Waterfall 36

IX Joy 38

X Society 39

XI Books 43

XII High and Low 45

XIII The World Without God 48

XIV Anthropomorphism 51

XV Pantheism 53

XVI The Relation of Religion to

Facts . 54

XVII The Breadth of the Command-
ment 56

XVIII Redemption 59

XIX Freedom 61

XX This Present Evil World 63

XXI Justice and Mercy 65

XXII Guidance 68

7

Contents

PAGE

XXIII The Prayers of the Innocent. 70

XXIV One of Us 72

XXV Self-abnegation 75

XXVI Inasmuch as Ye Did it Not. ... 78

XXVII Giving 80

XXVIII Competition 84

XXIX This World and Another 86

XXX The Kingdom , 90

THE LOVE OF THE WORLD

THE LOVE OF THE WORLD

Chapter I. — The Love of the World

Jesus says : " Ye cannot serve God and
mammon." " Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break
through and steal : but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not
break through nor steal : for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also."
" And the cares of this world, and the de-
ceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other
things entering in, choke the word, and it
becometh unfruitful." "Seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto
you." John says : " Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If
any man love the world, the love of the

Cbe %ove of tbe liiaorlo

Father is not in him. For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the
Father, but is of the world." I think I un-
derstand Jesus better. Paul is not the only
apostle who has written things hard to un-
derstand. Jesus's word is always easier. Not
easier to do. No ; hardest of all to do, though
easiest to know. Though his yoke be easy,
and his burden light, and his command-
ments not grievous, yet not with sloth or
negligence or ease may a man walk his
way.

O Master, let me walk with thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me thy secret, help me bear
The strain of toil, the fret of care.

Only by toil, by patience, by watching,
and by prayer may we attain that life. Yet
the conception of it is simple : to serve God
only, and, as for mammon, to make that
serve him too; not to lay up treasure of
earth's goods, but to give and to use them.
And what is it to serve God ? To follow
Jesus's footsteps in serving man, to seek first
his kingdom, the utmost good to all the

Gbe %ove ot tbe motlt>

children of our common Father. " And all
these things shall be added."

And if some things I do not ask

In my cup of blessing be,
I would have my spirit filled the more

With grateful love to thee.

And these things that shall be added bring
cares, which sometimes deceive, and choke
the word, making it unfruitful. That is our
fault, not the fault of the things. In love
God gives the things, and if in love we take
them at his hand, and in love use and en-
joy them, then they do not choke the word
or make it unfruitful. It is not that we
prize any of God's gifts too highly or en-
joy them too much, but that we love God
and man too little — ah, far too little.

But what does John mean ? " Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the
world. If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him." And he adds
that " all that is in the world .... is not
of the Father." I love the world, and the
things that are in it. I love the beautiful
world of matter, earth and sky and sea, sun
and moon and stars, forest and field and

Gbe %ox>e of tbe TBflorlo

garden, flower and fruit and living thing.
I love the world of man, of human society ;
not man in the positivist, humanitarian sense,
nor man as a soul to be saved in a so-called
religious sense; but man in a distinctly
worldly sense — his thoughts, his feelings,
his books, his music, his conversation, his
amusements, good clothes, and good din-
ners. And what is worse, I keep loving
them more and more. My simple and direct
enjoyment of all these things has at least
doubled in the last ten years. Furthermore,
I cannot conceive that the things that are in
the world are not of the Father. How, O
thou enigmatical apostle, can there be any-
thing that is not of the Father ? Is it not
written, " The earth is the Lord's, and the
fulness thereof"? God made man, made
his appetites, made the things to satisfy them.
Surely, then, they are of the Father. There
is but one thing which is not of the Father.
That thing is sin. Doubtless it is to the sin
that is in the world that Paul refers when he
says, " Be not conformed to this world : but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind." Full of sin are those cynical max-

Gbe %ove of tbe tuaorlo 15

ims and those hard and selfish ways .which
prevail so widely among men. It does not
follow that the things which the world counts
pleasant and profitable ought not to be
loved and sought, but only that sin is to be
shunned, that we are to be on our guard
against an unloving spirit. Not renuncia-
tion, but

A mind to blend with outward life

While keeping at Thy side.

Could John mean that it is the sin mixed
in man's thoughts, feelings, conversation,
amusements, which one may not love and
love the Father too ? But nobody really
loves sin ; we sin for gratification, and from
lack of purpose to restrain impulse. Does
he mean merely to say what Jesus says, that
we must love God most of all, and place his
kingdom first ? I cannot tell what he means.
Perhaps, then, if I fix my thought upon
Jesus's word, which seems so plain and sim-
ple, and strive ever more earnestly to live
by that, it will be accounted sufficient. If,
then, I " find from day to day a nearness to
my God," if faith is growing easier, hope
brighter, and love warmer, I will not fear to

16 Gbe %ovc of tbe TClorlo

face the fact that day by day and year by
year the things that are in the world are
growing dearer to me — not dearer to hoard
and cling to, but dearer to enjoy. As heart
and mind deepen and broaden with the years
under God's discipline, why should not our
appreciation of all things grow ? His gifts
are ever new, and they seem ever richer,
fuller, gladder, more satisfying to the varied
needs of our many-sided nature. They do
not turn to ashes for me, do not become to
me vanity of vanities. Some things, perhaps,
we may outgrow, but there are more which
we need to grow up to. " Earthly vanities,"
" vain delusions," " passing shows," " hollow
mockeries " ? Think, O bold man, before
thou darest thus to sit in the seat of the
scornful. Think whether the fault be in the
things which God made, in the desire for
them, which desire also he made, or in thine
own shallow thought and foolish heart, which
understands neither God nor his gifts.

" Think less of the things of this earthly
life, and more of God," say some. The order
is inverted. Reverse it. Begin at the other
end. Think more of God. Let that come

IRot Conformed to tbis Worlo 17

first. Then, when thy heart is first filled
with his abiding presence, there will be
more room, not less, for the things of this
blessed earthly life. The thought of God
drives out sin. It drives out nothing else,
but rather enlarges the heart to reach all
thoughts possible to man, to hold all joys
more dear.

Chapter II. — "Not Conformed to
this World "

" Be not conformed to this world : but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
There are multitudes of men and women
who do not form their lives at all. They do
not choose to obey the will of God or to
be of use to man, but are dragged hither
and thither by the impulse of self-gratifica-
tion. These are the wicked. Some of them
are criminals, and some are good citizens;
some are dissolute, some are free from vices;
some are outcast, some are respectable. In
3

is Cbe %ove of tbe TiClorlo

one thing they are all alike : they are not
guiding their lives by a steady purpose to
give, to help, to serve, to do the painful
right — and that one thing is the essence
of wickedness.

These people I love in many ways. Not
one of them who cannot draw me, even if at
the same time he repel me. Some have the
charm of intellect and wit, of polished man-
ners and graceful ease. Others, who have
none of these, win by the spell of a strange
life, yet a life not wholly alien to me, a life
I have not known but could know. The
bond of human fellowship is strong. These
wicked, what are they but my kin, what are
they but my fellow-sinners ? If I am striv-
ing after something better, and they are not,
that is a reason the more for loving them.
I love them well. I love the things which
they love, believing them things truly wor-
thy to be loved.

Yet I pray God I may not be altogether
as one of these. Their way of living is not
noble. A human life not guided by purpose
is but as the life of the brute. Nay, worse ;
for noble, spiritual faculties are degraded,

tflot Conformed to tbis Worlo 19

enslaved to do the bidding of selfish pas-
sion— a frightful power which the brutes
have not.

The cumulative influence of the life which
numbers are living together is wonderful.
When many are living without faith and
hope and love, then doubt, despair, and
hatred permeate the common thought and
feeling, and a standard is formed which has
a terrible conforming power. Who has not
felt it — that cold, hard selfishness and cyni-
cism, that polished insinuation of baseness,
that stately pride, that easy forgetfulness of
all who are outside ?

" Be not conformed." 'T is well that
the injunction comes from that apostle who
fought with beasts at Ephesus. We must
fight, fight unceasingly, with all the strength
of our soul, and with all the spiritual forces
which prayer can bring to our aid. Let no
man think the battle may be won by fleeing
from the field. Live nobly among those
who live ignobly, doing the same things
which they do, but with a difference. Yet
beware, and yet again beware. It is a
fearful combat, and with fearful issues, this

Gbe %ox>e of tbe movib

struggle in which we are set and which we
dare not flee. Consider what it is to think
base thoughts, and ever baser day by day ;
to have the heart hardening, hardening, till
not one generous feeling, one noble impulse,
stirs; an ever narrower, feebler, shallower
soul, no outlook, no outreaching, no fellow-
ship with God or man. Oh, fight, my
soul ! " Be not conformed ! "

Chapter III. — The Dandelions

There is a spot by the way, as one walks
toward the village, where, for a brief time
in May, the thick, green grass is crowded
with clusters of enormous dandelions. My
joy in their gorgeous beauty grows with the
years. I anticipate them for weeks, and
when they come they are always larger and
brighter and more a delight than I had pic-
tured them. The other day, as I was ex-
pressing my pleasure in them, my friend
said : " But how soon they are gone. Is
it not sad to think how beauty passes ? "

Cbe BanDelions

"Yes," I said; "but they will come again."
Ah, they will come again! That beauty-
loving, beauty-making power whom we call
God, and whom Jesus taught us to call
Father, will never fail. It is the sadness
that is passing; the eternal verity is joy.
For God is the eternal foundation, and he
is the All-father, loving all his creatures.

And I smiled to think God's goodness flowed
around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness his rest.

There is a sadness in change and loss;
. yet who would not have dandelions in May
and roses in June, and more dandelions
again the next May, rather than dandelions
all the year round ? All the losses shall be
made up ; the sadness is a passing thought.

For life is ever lord of death,
And love can never lose its own.

Life is not to the Christian as it seemed
to the pagan, one brief, bright spot on a vast,
black background, a bright spot which must
be made as intense as possible while it lasted.
What can be sadder than those exquisite
odes of Horace in which he pictures the

Gbe %ove of tbe Tldorlo

sweet and gentle joys of spring against the
blackness of a fast on-coming night, unless
it be those mad, melodious little wine-songs
called by Anacreon's name ? " Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die.". Let us
eat and drink, indeed, for to-morrow we
live. Eat and drink, not with the feverish
haste and greed of one who must gratify in
a moment an infinite longing, but with the
calm, sweet satisfaction of those who know
that " in our Father's house there is bread
enough and to spare." All kinds of joy,
lower and higher, should grow and not wane,
ever old and ever new. Why should not the
bright things pass ? They are not given us
as possessions to keep and hoard. Only
dead things can be hoarded. Life is better,
yea, this fleeting life, ever moving, yet ever
resting in the bosom of infinite, unchanging
love and power.

He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy ;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.

B Sballow ©ptimtem 23

Chapter IV. — A Shallow Optimism

And what of sorrow ? To say that joy
is the great and lasting fact, sadness brief
and passing, is that a shallow optimism ?
The conception of a never-failing, all-suffi-
cient happiness as more comprehensive and
enduring than sorrow in this universe of
God is optimism indeed, extreme optimism.
But shallow ? Not necessarily. There is a
shallow optimism. It has two ways of dis-
posing of sorrow, to deny its existence or to
deny its reality. Both these ways are false
and shallow. Sorrow exists — black, mon-
strous, frightful. There are the sorrows of
our common human lot — loss, pain, disease,
death, anguish of body and of soul. There
are the sorrows coming more directly from
man's crime and vice — cruelty, oppression,
grinding, brutalizing poverty. Nor may we
take refuge in the second falsehood, that
sorrow is not real, that pain is matter of in-
difference, moral acts and states alone having
any real value. To those who are acquainted
with grief, this needs no refutation. Sorrow

24 Gbe %ove of tbe Worlo

is no sham. It is true, and it is evil. It may
be productive of good, but it is itself an im-
mediate and actual evil. Let us not try to
shut our eyes or to mock our deepest experi-
ence. There is a cloud, black, real, and, to
our little selves in the little present, large,
very large. But open the eyes wider, look
out more broadly ; the sunlight, after all, is
a vaster thing than the shadow. " God is
light, and in him is no darkness at all." The
Christian is happy; not, like the epicurean,
by intensifying a brief ray in contrast with a
vast gloom soon to engulf it, nor like the
stoic, by denying the real existence of any
blackness, but by trusting that light alone is
infinite. Oh, let us never try to be happy
by contrast or by forgetting !

It is not praise
To call to mind our happier lot,

To boast bright days
God-favored, with all else forgot.

Remember sorrow, but remember also
God. Carry on thy heart the woes of the
world, but rest thy heart upon the heart of
God.

Deep and dark are the mysteries that

Sballow ©ptimtsm 25

hang about the existence of sorrow, and es-
pecially about its connection with sin. Is
it a necessary connection ? Would there
have been sorrow had there been no sin?
God knows. May the sinless suffer ? Yes,
verily; for Immanuel knew deeper depths
than human thought can fathom. The in-
nocent suffer with and for the guilty, both
voluntarily and involuntarily. When such
suffering is voluntary, it may perhaps be
called sacrificial.

The idea that sorrowful experience is dis-
ciplinary is an old and familiar one. How
far this is true we may not know. Great
is the folly and presumption of those who
weigh woes and disasters in balances, and
announce just what and how much good
they were intended to accomplish.

Suffering may bring salutary results, but
those go too far who say the same of sin.
There is too much of this confusion of ideas,
leading to shockingly immoral statements.
The great poets, to whom we look for the
clear vision of truth, have not always spoken
the right word here. " Rephan " is ambig-
uous. If it means that a world where there
4

26 Gbe %ove of tbe TKBorlo

is nothing unpleasant, nothing imperfect in
its natural qualities, no hardship, no endur-
ance, no temptation, would not be the best
place to form character, it may be true. But
if it means that a world where there is no
sin would not be the best place, then it is
damnable falsehood. Evil is an ambiguous
word. We hear men say that character is
strengthened by experience of evil, and thus
they account for the existence of such a
world as this. If by evil they mean pain,
toil, struggle, perhaps they are right. If
they mean sin, they are wrong. Sin always
weakens character, never strengthens it.
Untried innocence is not character. Un-
tried innocence is weak. But guilt is not
the only alternative. There is such a thing
as tried innocence. That is character, that
is strong. Temptation and sin are not the
same. We can imagine Adam and Eve
mightily tempted, mightily resisting, and tri-
umphant. Then we can imagine the whole
human race descended from them inheriting
their moral strength, instead of our present
inheritance of moral weakness, ever tempted
through all the ages, and ever stronger to

B Sballow ©ptimism 27

resist. This is not only a possible concep-
tion, but was possible as a fact. We may
have a good word for sorrow, but never one
for sin. Sin is ever and only a hateful, hid-
eous, and abominable thing. It has no good
side, no compensations. Is it not sin that
has defiled God's pure image in us ? Is it
not sin that separates us from God? Is it
not sin that ever lays that cruel burden on
our Saviour's heart ? Our Saviour ! Then
sin itself, though wholly and forever without
compensation, is not without hope.

Two sorrie Thynges there be —

Ay, three :
A Neste from which ye Fledglings have been taken,

A Lamb forsaken,
A Petal from ye Wilde Rose rudely shaken.

Of gladde Thynges there be more —

Ay, four :
A Larke above ye olde Neste blithely singing,

A Wilde Rose clinging
In safety to ye Rock, a Shepherde bringing
A Lamb, found, in his arms — and

Chrystmesse Bells a-ringing.

28 Gbe Xove of tbe "Caorlo

Chapter V. — Gain and Loss

There is a broad and far-reaching con-
clusion for which evidence seems to be ac-
cumulating, that in the general course of
things the gains are greater than the losses.
This seems to be true in the evolution of
worlds; is it also true in the life of nations
and of individuals ? We are not at present
in a position to prove it. Those of us
who permit ourselves to believe some things
which are not proved may believe it. At
least the opposite is unproved.

Historians have been wont to say much
about the decay and death of nations, attrib-
uting their fall to internal corruption. Are
not these statements due to a false analogy,
and a partial view of facts ? Perhaps he
sees more clearly who says, " The great em-
pires of the Old World perished, not through
internal moral-intellectual decay, but by
outward pressure. They fell apart through
insufficient political organization, and suc-
cumbed to the violence of stronger powers."

Rome, since the days of her own histo-

<3ain and %oee 29

rians, has been a favorite instance of na-
tional degeneracy. If we compare the time
of the second Punic war with the time of
Nero, there are conspicuous losses indeed.
A rude vigor, a simplicity of living, a single-
ness of mental vision and of moral purpose,
a fervor of patriotism, a personal military
daring, an earnest religious faith, marked the
early Romans. Their descendants lost in
vigor, and gained in gentleness ; they lost in
simplicity, and gained in refinement; they
lost in singleness of view, and gained in
breadth. If they were less zealous for Rome,
they could be more just to men of other na-
tions. If Roman citizens no longer fought,
they did other things perhaps equally worthy
of a man. And who would say that the loss
of faith in the ancestral gods was not a step
to nobler faith? The standard of morals
was higher in the time of Seneca than in
the time oT Plautus. A Horace is a hundred
times more a man than a Cato. Better an
age that could produce a Tacitus than one
which produced an Ennius. No, the Roman
race did not degenerate ; it rose from a lower
to a higher plane of life.

3° Gbe %ove of tbe TIKlorlo

And what of the individual ? In the
sweep of those forces which effect the de-
velopment of nations many a soul is ruined.
" So careless of the single life " is this " stream
of tendency." As Rome rose from rude bar-
barism to refinement and culture, the virtues
of a civilized man might replace the virtues
of an ignorant barbarian. This is great gain.
On the contrary, vice might replace virtue.
This is utter loss. The same man who was
vile in the Rome of Nero might have been
upright in the Rome of the first consul.
Wider opportunities do not come without
greater temptation. Not to every one of
us does the devil offer the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them. A higher
standard of morals in the nation does not
mean a higher moral character in every in-
dividual. In truth, we here come upon an-
other element, the free choice. There is no
fixed law of progress for the personal soul.
All that can be said is. that he may make his
gains greater than his losses, if he so choose.
There is no loss destined for a man in the
course of nature which does not bring with it
a greater gain, if he does not sell his birthright.

]L>outb anD %qc

Chapter VI. — Youth and Age

To be young is good, to be old is better.
It is a perpetual astonishment to me to hear
those who believe that God is good lament
that they must pass from youth to age.
If growing old is bad, then there is some-
thing which is bad in the inevitable course
of nature. This is to accuse the Maker.
Surely it is good to grow. The saddest of
all sights in nature is stunted growth. He
has small conception of the meaning of life
who looks upon youth as the brightest and
best part of it. Life is an increasing, not a
waning, good.

There are in evi table losses in growing old.
First, there is the fresh bloom of youthful
beauty. Far be it from me to decry that as
a thing of little worth. Nay ; it is a lovely
thing, a good gift of God. Many another
gift we could spare rather than this. But
there is a beauty of the aged that is far
better. The beauty of the young is a com-
paratively empty thing. It is so plainly a
gift and not an attainment. Ah, that face

32 XLbc %ove of tbe TKflorlo

in which we read of victories won, of sorrows
well endured, joy unquenched by aught that
life has brought, wisdom, and quietness, ten-
der love, and hope that will not fail ! What
round and rosy cheek, what flashing eye, has
beauty to compare with that ?

The old have lost physical strength and
energy, the gladness of abounding physical
life. This is a loss hard to bear. Bodily
strength is a great good. Strength of soul
is better. Who would go back from what
he now thinks to what he used to think?
Who would barter a chastened spirit for a
strong arm and leaping blood ?

The young are enthusiastic, hopeful, con-
fident, courageous, believing. The old are
not necessarily unenthusiastic, despairing
diffident, cowardly, and skeptical. There is
in the enthusiasm of the young an element
of rashness and folly, in their hopefulness an
element of ignorance, in their confidence an
element of conceit, in their courage an ele-
ment of recklessness, in their belief an ele-
ment of credulity. It is quite possible in
growing old to keep all these good qualities,
purging out all these bad elements.

tyoutb anD Bge 33

I love the young, but the old are better.
It is good to talk with a boy or girl of
twenty; it is better to talk with a man or
woman of forty; better still with a man or
woman of eighty. It doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but we shall be something
more and better than we are.

Listen, thou child I used to be !

I know what thou didst fret to know —
Knowledge thou couldst not lure to thee,

Whatever bribe thou wouldst bestow.
That knowledge but a way-mark plants
Along the road of ignorance.

Listen, thou child I used to be !

I am enlarged where thou wert bound,
Though vaunting still that thou wast free,

And lord of thine own pleasure crowned.
True freedom heeds a hidden stress
Whereby desire to range grows less.

Listen, thou child I used to be !

I am what thy dream-wandering sense
Did shape, and thy fresh will decree —

Yet all with subtle difference.
Where heaven's arc did seem to end
Still on and on fair fields extend.

Yet listen, child I used to be !

Nothing of thine I dare despise,
Nor passion, deed, nor fantasy ;

For, lo ! the soul's far years shall rise
And with unripeness charge this hour
Would boast o'er thine its riper power.

34 Gbe Xovc of tbe *uaorlo

Chapter VII. — In the Orchard

There is an old apple-orchard on the
shore of the lake. Last Sunday it was at its
moment of perfect beauty. As I reclined
upon my favorite bough of the largest
spreading tree, my book in my hand, closed
as usual (for there are better things in an
orchard than reading), while the breeze
wafted the faint sweetness of the clustering
blossoms, the birds sang, and my eyes rested
on the deep green grass and the blue water,
I was thinking of none of these things. I
was thinking of the worms' nests. How
happy the living creatures seemed as they
wriggled in the sun. Like the Ancient Mar-
iner, " I blessed them unawares." And to-
morrow a man would come and burn them.
I must be glad of that, for they would spoil
the trees, my dear old trees. Oh, yes; let
the worms be burned. Yet I was sorry too,
for joy is joy, albeit the meager joy of a
worm, . and fire must hurt even a worm.
Said a merry, three-years child, my heart's
joy and in truth my valued friend, who gives

ITn tbe ©rebate 35

me more good counsel than I can give to
him — said he to me one day : " Did God
make the little worms ? Does he love them
too ? Then grandpa is a naughty man to
burn them." Who will answer the child?
Here we stumble upon a far deeper and
darker problem than that of human suffer-
ing, for there may be to man the result-
ing good of moral discipline. But what
compensation to the worm ? I exonerated
grandpa, saying that he must burn the
worms because they spoiled the trees. " Oh,
then they are naughty worms to spoil the
trees," was the child's reply. I said no more.
Why tell him that the worms too are guilt-
less? Uncompensated suffering inflicted
upon the innocent — alas ! my child, it does
look very like naughtiness somewhere. If
not in grandpa, and not in the worms, then
— pause, my soul. Utter no blasphemy.

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

" Faintly trust ? " Nay; I will trust not
faintly, I will trust fully, freely, strongly. It

36 Cbe %ove oi tbe MorlD

must be all trust here, no sight, not even the
smallest ray of light. To trust is hard. But
if one can trust at all, why is it not as easy
to trust perfectly as to trust faintly ? If I
cannot think that God is perfect in justice,
love, and power, in spite of all appearances
to the contrary, then I will not trust him at
all ; no, not one inch. But if I do think he
is thus perfect, then I will trust him forever
and for all.

Chapter VIII. — By the Waterfall

There is a lonely spot shut in by cliffs
of stone veiled in delicate green, and in
the midst a little waterfall, spray and mist
gleaming white in the sunshine against the
dark rock. The place is so beautiful and
so little frequented that one must think of
it as beauty which God makes for himself.
Yet I think he is always glad when one of
us will come out to look at it with him. To
me, standing in this spot and gazing down
upon the cascade and up upon the cliffs, it
seems that God is both in his works — that

JBy tbe XUaterfaU 37

the power which carries the water down and
the tree-trunk up is God — and that he looks
upon his works and takes joy in beauty.
This is a sad combination of pantheism and
anthropomorphism. At this moment I will
not think of any of those terrible Greek
words. God takes gladness or sorrow from
all, gladness from all but sin, sorrow from
us when we sin, and joy over one sinner
that repenteth. In the parables of the prod-
igal son and the lost sheep it may be that
the lost are sought for their own good ; but
in the parable of the swept-for shilling, for
whose ? Surely not the shilling's. He who
looks at natural beauty as looking at it with
God has a noble fellowship. He need never
fear loving it too much. Perhaps we dis-
honor the Maker by loving it too little.
We walk too carelessly in his sanctuary,
though all his messengers, the poets and
prophets, from the beginning have warned
us to beware.

And every common bush afire with God ;
But onlv he who sees takes off his shoes.

38 cbe %ove of tbe TldorlD

Chapter IX. — Joy

My grandfather, a devout and upright
man, was greatly desirous of my growth in
piety. He conceived joy as of two kinds — re-
ligious joy, found in prayer, reading religious
books, and the services of the church, and
worldly joy. While knowing that it was but
natural that certain childish sports should
then attract me, he hoped they would soon
be quite banished from my heart. I can
but think that he conceived the human
heart as an inclosed space, and that when
religious joy grew, as every true believer
must long to have it grow, it drove out, in
the very nature of things, all other joys, and
filled the heart.

Such a division of joy is quite impossible
to me. All joy, save that which is found in
sinning, is to my thought religious joy. Body
and soul reach out, so God has willed it, for
that which fills their need. "God giveth
them their meat in due season," and with it
giveth joy, full, many-sided, deep, and rich.
Is it not all his joy ? Why then call it less

30£ 39

than religious, as if it were outside of him?
Why wish to lessen it ? There is no need to
lessen any joy to make room for any other.
The human heart is not an inclosed space.
It grows with that which fills it. Shall Ave
make ourselves less than God has made us ?
And shall we think to imprison the Deity
within bounds ? We say that when we are
uttering words of prayer we are in com-
munion with him. But when and where
are we out of communion with him ? When
we are speaking words to him, is that joy
more in him than other joys? O our
Father, we are with thee when we know it
not! All our springs are in thee. Make
us clean, make us strong, that all our life
may speak to thee and answer back thy
love.

Chapter X. — Society

There was a time in youth when the
trifling and short-lived vanities of the social
world had little charm for me. Such things
were far beneath the level of my thoughts.

Cbe Xove of tbe TlClorlo

It seemed much grander to stay at home
and read Plato. So intellectual and serious
a young person could not enjoy the conver-
sation of ordinary folk, nor the gaieties which
please the throng.

O that lofty, vanished youth, which had
not learned the folly of despising! O ig-
norant and superficial judgment, which
counts my neighbor more frivolous than I
because he wears a better garment, dines
out oftener, and talks about the last new
novel or the comic stage. O vain conceit,
which stands aloof from converse with the
poor, the ignorant, and unlettered, as of
another world than they. Who is there
that cannot give me something better than
what I find in myself? No longer do peo-
ple weary me. I find social visits and the
talk of all kinds of men, women, and chil-
dren both pleasant and profitable. Verily,
my pedestal is shattered. A pillar sixty feet
high does not now lift me above those com-
mon things in which the vulgar are inter-
ested. It does not seem a waste of time
to hear Mr. A's opinion of the state of the
market, Mrs, B's anxieties about Bobbie's

Society 41

cough, young C's experience in foot-ball,
and pretty Miss D's view of the comparative
merits of Tennyson and Browning, while I
might be reading metaphysics, or thinking
on the things of the Spirit.

Here is certainly a great change which
the years have brought. Is it a change for
the better or for the worse ? For the bet-
ter, Seneca and Epictetus, St. Simeon and
Thomas a Kempis, John Knox and Richard
Baxter, to the contrary notwithstanding. I
will not say that the world and its lying
vanities have been making ever-deeper in-
roads upon my religious life, and more and
more enslaving my affections, dragging me
down to a lower level of thought and de-
sire. Not so; but rather, as religion has
deepened its hold and broadened its sway,
every part of life quickened by its touch has
become more real, more sacred, more joy-
ful, more satisfying. Religion is not a de-
partment of human life. Religion is a spirit
pervading all departments of human life.
The religious nature is to be cultivated and
the soul prepared for heaven, not by with-
drawing the affections and interest from "the
6

42 Gbe %ove of tbe Morlo

things of time and sense," taking ever less
and less joy in them, and fixing the thoughts
exclusively upon subjects called religious.
No, no; not so are saints made. There must
be an ever-deepening, ever-broadening love
of God and man in the soul, and then will
nothing which God made, nothing which
ministers to man, seem trivial to us.

Wouldst thou be daily more religious, O
my soul ? Draw nearer to the Father, and
that will surely not draw thee farther away
from the human things, even the simple,
lowly things that please the sense. The
taste of that which pleases the palate, the
bright adornments which attract the eye, the
harmless gaieties of social life — do not call
them irreligious things, foes to thy religious
life, or, alas ! to thee they may become so.
Carry them in thy heart so very near to thy
religion that they shall ever feel its purify-
ing touch. Wear the ball-dress, eat of the
dainties, and beware lest thou think one un-
worthy thought, say one unkind word, do
one cowardly or ungenerous deed, or ever
forget, in selfish pleasure-seeking, the world's
need of thy love and help.

JBOOfcS 43

Chapter XI. — Books

The world of books is still the world

True, O poet, and that fact adds another
to the things to be abjured, if indeed to ab-
jure the world is the thing that becometh
saints. The pillar on which I stood wThen
Plato seemed more attractive than society
must be made higher and placed on a still
narrower base. For Plato is only more in-
tellectual than dancing, not more unworldly.
Intellectual pride is a part, and no small
part, of the pride of life. Nay, there is even
said to be a kind of pride called spiritual
pride, to which those are tempted who have
quite abjured the things of the body and
the things of the intellect. It would seem
that to withdraw from the wrorld and to shut
the soul up to itself does not deliver from
temptation.

If renunciation be a test of saintliness, how
far have I renounced the world of books ?
Make the test severe. Would I be willing
to take some religious book, say Thomas
a Kempis's " Imitation of Christ," for my

Cbe %ox>e of tbe morlo

sole reading, giving up all worldly books
whatsoever ? No, never. To be honest, I
do not like Thomas a Kempis. Change the
test, then. Say the Bible. Would I be will-
ing to limit my reading to the Bible only ?
Ah, that is different, very different. I could
do very well with the Bible only. The
Bible is a body of literature. It cannot be
called a religious book at all, in the sense in
which the " Imitation of Christ " is so called.
There is a great deal of the world in the
Bible, and even something of the flesh and
the devil too. Certainly if the choice lay
between the Bible alone without any other
book, and all other books without the Bi-
ble, I would eagerly and gladly choose the
Bible. But who dare bid read Genesis and
no other history, Isaiah and no other poetry,
Paul and no other philosophy? He will
not find his warrant in the Bible itself. The
stoic may despise books and the learning of
the schools ; the Christian, never. The Bible
is divine and human. So is all life upon
the earth, and all the record of man's life
and thought. The world of books is still
the world, a wide, rich world. In it are

HMgb anD %o\v 45

beauty and power and light, and in it, too,
are snares and pitfalls. He only walks in
any world with safety who takes firm hold
of truth and walks with God.

A book is a spiritual presence. Its spirit is
noble or base, loving or hating, sincere or
mocking, clean or unclean. Shun the evil,
O my soul; touch not the unclean thing.
"I pray not that thou shouldst take them
out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep
them from the evil."

Chapter XII. — High and Low

We have little to do with the absolute.
One is tempted to think at times that it might
prove a simpler subject to deal with than the
relative. What is high and what is low?
Are spiritual things high and material things
low ? The ascetics have always thought so.

From the low train of mortal toys
I soar to reach immortal joys.

I doubt whether they are to be reached by
soaring.

46 cbe Xove of tbe Taaorlo

Matter existing alone, apart from any liv-
ing soul, if such a thing is or could be, is
low and even worthless. But matter as we
know it, in its relations and adaptations, is
too closely united with the highest to be
called low. We do not and we cannot rise
above it. Perhaps the path to our highest
spiritual development lies right here where
we are, in dealing with material things justly
and faithfully. The apostle bids us mind
not high things. A man of the greatest in-
tellectual gifts and attainments may be doing
his duty in scrubbing a floor. If he is doing
his duty, he is doing the highest thing in all
the universe. Let no one mourn as over
wasted powers, or say that high gifts are
brought down to low uses. Let no one say
he stoops to such toil. If he himself feels
that he stoops to do it, he is not a man of
high character. It is an exalted privilege
that we are permitted to do anything that
is of use. All work stands above us and
beckons us up. Happy is he who sees every
duty as above him and worthy of his best.

A false estimate of what is high and what
is low is a common source of bad manners

Dtgb anD Xow 47

as well as of bad morals. There are some per-
sons of culture and social standing who treat
their equals with graceful ease and courtesy;
the few whom they regard as their superiors,
with exaggerated deference; the many whom
they count beneath them, with calm inso-
lence and utter disregard. This behavior
they count proper from the higher to the
lower, forgetting that insolence is always
low. Learning is better than ignorance, but
the learned are not always higher than the
ignorant. Since there is something in us
above the intellect, the very learned may be
very despicable. A refinement of taste which
looks with scorn or indifference upon the vul-
gar is itself the essence of vulgarity. An
evident sense of superiority is not a token
of superiority. A quiet assumption is more
offensive than an obtrusive claim. Respect
is due from every man to every other man.
Since elevation is in the action itself, — that
is, in the attitude of soul, not in that with
which the action deals, — to live on a high
level is open to every man. The honest,
the humble, the reverent, the useful are high,
and their work is high, be it with matter,

48 Gbe TLove of tbe TiClorlo

with mind, with spirit. The careless, the
proud, the scornful, the useless are low.

An action may be high without being
great. Greatness is not open to all; it im-
plies something more than noble motive.
Greatness is power guided by love. The
love without the power is noble, but not
great. The power without the love is mon-
strous, but not great.

There is a higher and a lower. That which
is high is within the reach of us all. It is
within our reach now and here, upon this
very earth which Jesus trod. He was not
higher when he spoke eternal mysteries than
when he used the plane and saw. He is not
higher on his throne than when on his cross.

Chapter XIII. — The World without
God

How deep is the gloom which weighs
upon the spirit in reading the words of those
who find no God in the world, nothing but
man and a something which they call na-

Cbe IdorlD witbout <5oD

ture! These prophets of no-god would
seem, like the prophets of God, to have
been since the world began. It seems but
a step from that Roman poet who

Dropped his plummet down the broad,
Deep universe, and said, " No God,"
Finding no bottom,

to this Mr. Richard Jefferies whose books
I have been reading to-day. One can
scarcely believe them two thousand years
apart. There are the same close observation
of nature, the same yearning for some kind
of heart-union with nature, the same long-
ing to save men from all their sorrows and
mistakes by bringing the race into harmony
with nature, the same gloomy intensity and
brooding sadness. Well may they be sad.
Neither will they win thus peace for their
own souls nor redemption for men. Man is
not a child of nature; he is a child of God.
What is nature ? The all-mother ? Strange
mother ! Blind and deaf; pitiless, or power-
less to aid; who torments her children for a
few brief years with meaningless and useless
sufferings, then blots them out as they had
never been. What is nature ? Matter, force,
7

50 Cbe %ox>e of tbe TKflorlo

and law. Which of these shall be just?
Which of them shall show mercy ? Which
shall help or save ? Nature is not our
parent. She cannot even reveal to us a
parent. Nature reveals power, and not with
certainty anything else. Is it an intelligent
power? Is it a beneficent power? We
know not. Call it, then, the unknowable,
and escape despair if you can. Our case is
worse than that of the ancient pagan world,
inasmuch as an unknowable is infinitely
farther off than an unknown. Worse than
the pagan world, unless, indeed, we be a
Christian world. Knowing Christ, we know
God, a father, a redeemer, a sufferer. No
other but a suffering God for such a world
as this. Nature and man, suffering and sin,
a black, black world. But into that world
light is come.

The awful unknown power that in the darkness

lies
Thou saidst could be revealed, through thee, to

mortal eyes :

And what though earth and sea his glory do pro-
claim,

Tho' on the stars is writ that great and dreadful
name —

Bntbropomorpbism 51

Yea — hear me, Son of Man — with tears my eyes

are dim,
I cannot read the word which draws me close to

him.

I say it after thee, with faltering voice and weak,
"Father of Jesus Christ " — this is the God I seek.

On thee I lean my soul, bewildered, tempest-tost,
If thou canst fail, for me then everything is lost.

For triumph, for defeat, I lean my soul on thee ;
Yes, where thou art, O Lord, there let thy ser-
vant be.

Chapter XI V. — Anthropomorphism

As the eye and ear become accustomed
to these big Greek words, they do not strike
so much terror to the soul as they formerly
did. My idea of God is anthropomorphic,
it is true. The choice lies between anthro-
pomorphism and agnosticism. If we may
conceive that there is anything in God
which is like to anything in us, if man is in
any sense created in God's image, then we
may know something of God. Otherwise,
we can never know anything about him.
We may postulate the existence of some-

52 Gbe %ox>e of tbe TXHorlo

thing back of matter, force, and law, as a
philosophic necessity, or we may refuse to
philosophize at all, and stop short with mat-
ter, force, and law as observed realities.
In either case we do not know God. The
only God who can be known by man is, to
just that extent to which he may be known,
an anthropomorphic God. My God is a
being who knows, feels, wills. He is right-
eous, as any moral being is righteous, not by
necessity of nature, but by voluntary con-
formity to that law of love which is the
eternal law of moral obligation. Necessity
of nature is not righteousness.

" My God?" Not mine because I have
discovered or imagined such a being. The
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom
the prophets and kings of Israel dimly saw,
whom the Messiah of Israel and Redeemer
of the world makes manifest, the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. " Canst thou by searching
find out God ? " No ; but he can find out
me. There stands the record written. He
has come to search for men. Our Father can
and does make himself known to his children.

lpantbeism 53

Chapter XV. — Pantheism

Anthropomorphism might find pardon
in some quarters, pantheism in others, but
a combination of the two — monstrous !
Guilty of that, how shall I save my philo-
sophic soul ? Yet let me have my thoughts,
though they are fragments, and not fitted
together in one perfect whole. Though in-
complete, they may not be untrue. Who
can find out the Almighty to perfection ?

Pantheism is an indefinite term. If it be
pantheism to believe that force is not an
attribute of matter; that all force is spiritual
in its origin; that God is directly acting
upon matter everywhere, producing all those
motions which we call heat, and light, and
electricity, and life, and the rest, then I am a
pantheist. Questions crowd upon the mind.
What is matter shorn of its attributes? Is
it anything? Was it created? Is it eternal
and inseparable from the Divine Spirit which
pervades it? Unanswerable questions. Yet
am I sure that it is God who is pushing up-
ward this little blade of grass, opening the

54 Gbe %ove of tbe "GClorlo

petals of this blue violet, waving the branches
of the trees, and guiding through the air that
bird which wings its way across the blue.
How awful is his presence in the solemn
stillness of the woods ! How awful, yet how
glad! "Thou hast beset me behind and
before, and laid thine hand upon me."

Oh, how I fear thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears !

The fixity of nature's laws, as we call them,
is but his wise and loving way of working.
" The Deity lacks not ministers ; he him-
self ministers." We are not separated from
him by a long train of second causes. We
are not in the iron clutches of a merciless
mechanism. O thou Almighty and All-
merciful, how shall I walk before thee ?
"He knoweth our frame; he remembereth
that we are dust."

Chapter XVI. — The Relation of
Religion to Facts

Emotions arise in view of facts or of sup-
posed facts. It may not be necessary to es-

Zbc delation of IReligion to afacts 55

tablish facts by evidence in order that they
may arouse emotion, but it is necessary that
they be believed to exist. If, then, the world
ceases to believe in the facts which have
hitherto lain at the basis of the religious
feeling, the feeling will disappear. There
are those who, while they expect to see men
abandon all belief in God and a future life
as insufficiently proved, expect at the same
time to see a beautiful development of re-
ligious emotion leading to noble moral ac-
tion. Such a condition is simply impossible.
Religion is not an aroused state of emotion
with reference to nothing in particular. Re-
ligion is an attitude toward the Deity. If
no Deity exists, there can be no attitude
toward him.

There is a God, or there is not. A man
who does not believe that there is a God,
and a knowable God, cannot be religious.
His soul may swell with cosmic emotion,
but cosmic emotion is not religion. It lacks
the elements of reverence, love, and obedi-
ence.

This is no time for sentimental folly. Let
us call things by their right names. If we

56 Gbe %ox>e of tbe iMorlD

can reasonably continue to believe in the
facts of religion, by all means let us do so.
It is not necessarily unreasonable to believe
them because they are not proved. Certainly
they can not be disproved. If, however,
we must give them up, let us look the matter
squarely in the face ; let us give up religion
altogether, and make the best of it, if there
be a best.

Chapter XVII. — The Breadth of the

Commandment

" Thy commandment is exceeding broad."
" For I say unto you, that except your right-
eousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case
enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Be
ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect." There are
no works of supererogation. There is no
double standard. There is nowhere and at
no time any easing of the requirement. There
is no half allegiance. There is no partial
obedience.

Gbe JBreaotb of tbe Commandment 57

We are all prone, after the fashion of the
Romish Church, to make a double standard,
and to think that in so doing we are raising
the standard, while in fact we are debasing
it. We are prone to imagine that there is a
worldly life, a life upon a low plane, per-
missible to us, while there is a higher, purer
life within our reach ; that it is nobler not to
love the pleasant things of earth, while yet
to love them is not sinful. This is utter con-
fusion of moral ideas. Nothing less than
the best that we see and know is required of
any one of us. Nothing more than the best
that we see and know is possible to any one
of us. There is no second best in morals.
There is only a right and a wrong. He who
is doing right is on the highest moral and
spiritual level. He who sees a better within
his reach, and deliberately refuses it, is not
doing right at all. He is simply immoral
and irreligious. I have spent an hour in
amusing myself. Did I do wrong ? Could
I have done better? For me to say that
the amusement was not wrong, and yet that
I might have done better, is absurd. We
imagine that in so saying we are setting a

58 Gbe Xove of tbc Tl&orlo

high and unworldly standard of Christian
attainment. On the contrary, we are ad-
mitting the fatal idea of a well-enough in
the face of a possible better, an idea which
is capable of sinking a man in the very
bottomless pit of moral degradation.

This is not to say that we may not one
day see more clearly what is best than we
see it now. The law, stated more distinctly
and more sternly by Jesus than by any
other, is perfect and unchanging. Its ap-
plications are according to our seeing, and
must vary. Two persons may be doing ex-
actly opposite things, and each be doing
right. But there are not two courses, a
lower and a higher, set before the same per-
son, between which he is at liberty to choose.
When I see that a certain course of action
is not the very best and highest I can pur-
sue, that instant such a course becomes ut-
terly wrong and sinful for me.

As there is no less-than-right which is yet
sufficient, so there is no more-than-right
which is over and above the requirement.
The idea is not uncommon that justice is
what we ought to do, and mercy something

•Redemption 59

which we may give or withhold. This might
be true if the law were what the Pharisees
conceived it to be, an external rule. Jesus
demands a righteousness which shall exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Phari-
sees. The limit, and the only limit, of our
duty is our ability. He who gives alms to
the needy is not bestowing of grace that
which he is free to withhold did he so pre-
fer. The law of love knows no withholding.
Mercy is not the abrogation of law or the
lessening of requirement. Forgiveness is not
the condoning of offenses. Jesus did not
come to tell us that we might have our bad-
ness overlooked, but that we might become
good. " Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall
be filled."

Chapter XVIII. — Redemption

" Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or
the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do
good, that are accustomed to do evil." Is
the law so stern ? Is there no recovery of

6o XLbc %ove of tbe TKIlorlo

lost uprightness ? When our evil choices
have long conspired with our inherited ten-
dencies, frightful is the malady of the soul.
Nature is not without healing for the body.
Is there any help for the soul ? Yes ; in
God there is help, for he is a redeeming
God. " There is forgiveness with thee, that
thou mayest be feared." The knowledge of
an all-wise, beneficent Creator, awful in his
goodness and purity, were but bitterness to
us without the knowledge of his willingness
and power to redeem sinners. What have we
to do with the good and the pure ? Only to
abhor the more the abject meanness of our
guilt. But he can save. We may become
fit to be called his children. He is a God
who goes forth to seek the lost. This is no
cheap and easy redemption. Think of that
Christ-life, the patience, the humiliation, the
suffering, the temptation, the agony, the
cross. And when by infinite love and in-
finite patience we are won to repentance,
then what struggle with old habits, what
slow stumbling in the path of virtue ! What
a maimed and crippled soul it is, after all,
the soul that has sinned! Full and free is

ffreeDom

the redeeming grace, yet not easily may the
leopard change his spots. But there is all
eternity before us. Trust, O my soul, and
look up !

My sins, my sins, my Saviour !

They take such hold on me,
I am not able to look up,

Save only, Christ, to thee;
In thee is all forgiveness,

In thee abundant grace,
My shadow and my sunshine

The brightness of thy face.

My sins, my sins, my Saviour !

How sad on thee they fall !
Seen through thy gentle patience,

I tenfold feel them all ;
I know they are forgiven,

But still their pain to me
Is all the grief and anguish

They laid, my Lord, on thee.

Chapter XIX. — Freedom

The brute is free from the binding force
of moral law; the more slave he. The man
is free because he is bound. He is free to
control his appetites by bringing them un-
der obedience to the law. This is the only
freedom worthy of the name. Nobody does

62 XLbc Xov>e of tbe IKflorlo

as he pleases but he who pleases to do
right. He who like the animals follows
impulse does a thousand things which by-
no means please him after they are done.
He is in leading-strings.

Jesus has given a perfect statement of the
law in his two commandments. Every man
who perfectly obeys this law is free from all
other laws, rules, and regulations whatso-
ever; not free to set them aside recklessly
at the bidding of impulse, but free to keep
them of choice and not of compulsion. The
young and the superficial think that to be
free from rules means to do the things
which the rules forbid. On the contrary,
a man may be quite as free in obeying laws
as in disregarding them.

God made us to be free. How is it that,
free-born sons of God, we are ready to sell
ourselves daily for so small a price? We
have been Satan's bond-servants, and the
habits of our servitude are strong upon us.
When shall we stand fast in the liberty with
which Christ has made us free ?

Zbis present Evil "C&orlD 63

Chapter XX. — This Present Evil
World

The world may be contemplated under
many aspects. At times the thought of the
awful wickedness that is and has been upon
this earth falls upon the soul with a crush-
ing weight, and rests there, and will not be
put away. The mind travels through the
ages, and dwells upon the blackest pages of
human history, those records of cruelty and
treachery, and selfish greed and untamed
passion, working woe unutterable. Then the
thoughts run round and round the globe,
and the heart sinks in beholding the sins
now crying to heaven from every corner of
every land. Then, when we see the little
children, how the awful peril of temptation
seems inwrought in their very life, in body
and in mind, and how the conditions out-
side them work together with their very
nature, till it seems a miracle if any escape
ruin; then our soul writhes in agony and
doubt, and nothing can fit our mood but
those blasphemous words of Omar :

64 Cbe %ove of tbe IWorlo

O thou who man of baser earth didst make,
And e'en with Paradise devise the snake,
For all the sin wherewith the face of man
Is blackened, man's forgiveness give — and take.

We feel our own guilt for the sins we have
committed, but we feel something besides —
the sense of an awful power, a downward
current, against which men and women, and
most of all the tender infants, have scarce
strength to fight. One is tempted for a
moment to believe that the race is, as some
theologians have taught, accursed, or to
conceive a malignant demon who has us in
his grasp. The heart rebels, the spirit fails.
We are all but ready to curse God and die.

Gethsemane and Calvary rise up before
me. Ah, God, the guilt is ours ! The agony
thou sharest with us. The heart that hard-
ened itself before thy creative power and
sovereign will is humbled in the dust be-
fore thy suffering love. Thou hast done all
things well. We see it not, but trust. For-
give that profane daring that thought to ac-
cuse thee. Thou hast not made us to give
us over to destruction. The power of evil
shall be broken. There is no fear, there is
no doubt.

justice anfc d&ercg 65

Chapter XXI. — Justice and Mercy

There is a technical or legal justice, and
there is a moral justice. They are some-
times the same and sometimes not. When I
say that my neighbor ought, in strict justice,
to pay me what he owes, but that I may
in mercy remit part of the debt, I speak of
legal justice. Morally, I ought or I ought
not, according to circumstances, to remit a
part or the whole of the debt. If I ought
to remit it, it is morally unjust, though
legally just, to require payment. If I ought
not to remit payment, it is not a merciful
thing to remit it. That is to say, in the
moral realm justice and mercy are one and
inseparable.

Neither legally nor morally is there any
such thing as retributive justice. The very
idea of such a thing implies that offenses
and sufferings can be weighed in balances,
so much pain for so much wrong-doing.
The notion is absurd. The only standard
of rewards and penalties is the highest good
of all concerned.
9

Cbe %ox>c of tbe tlfilorld

Legally, a man who has broken a law
may be said to deserve the penalty. Mor-
ally, there is no such thing as deserving
punishment or reward. The good deserve
to be approved, not to be rewarded; the
bad deserve to be condemned, not to be
punished. It is unjust to condemn the in-
nocent, or to clear the guilty. It is not
necessarily unjust to inflict suffering upon
the innocent or to let the guilty go free. If
it is for the highest good of all that either
the innocent or the guilty should be made
to surfer, it is both just and merciful to make
them surfer to whatever extent is necessary.
If it is consistent with the highest good of
all to remit penalty, it is just and merciful
to remit it.

God's justice is moral justice, since his
law is moral law. Therefore we see great
inequalities in his dealings. Legal justice
strives after equality of dealing. Moral jus-
tice ignores it. Nothing in the parables of
Jesus is plainer than this. Those who la-
bored all day in the vineyard, and those who
worked but one hour, received every man a
penny. God condemns the sinner; he pro-

justice anD ZlBercs 67

nounces him guilty. That is just. He may
or may not punish the sinner. If it will be
good for the sinner to be punished, it is
both merciful and just to punish him. If it
will be good for the sinner to go unpun-
ished, it is both just and merciful to leave
him unpunished. God forgives the repen-
tant sinner. What does that mean ? It
means that he removes the sentence of
moral condemnation. That is just, for the
sinner, led to repentance by the sacrifice of
Christ and the ministration of the Spirit, is
now righteous. But, though now no longer
under condemnation, he may need to suffer
the penalty of his past sins. Forgiveness
does not imply remission of penalty. God
will mercifully punish all those who can be
benefited by punishment, repentant or un-
repentant.

Through the sacrifice of Christ and the
ministration of the Spirit the sinner is re-
deemed from sin to uprightness. Is it in
justice or in mercy that God, at this cost,
goes to seek the lost ? In both, for they are
inseparable still. In justice, not because
the lost deserve forgiveness, for there is no

68 Cbe %ox>e of tbe Morlo

such thing as desert. In justice as well as in
mercy, because if God could save, and did
not save, he were unjust.

Lord God, I fear thee; yet I fear thee
not. I am unclean. Punish me, but not
in thy displeasure. Now am I one with thee
through thy redeeming grace, and my will is
as thy will. I fear thy wrath, but I fear not
thy rod.

Chapter XXII. — Guidance

We seem to be always choosing, daily,
hourly, in things great and small. How
much of this choice is only seeming, who
shall say? Few go through life without
reaching the conclusion that there is a power
outside us which directs our path. Where,
then, our boasted freedom? That a man
goes here or there unconsciously guided by
an external power, while seeming to himself
to choose, is a mystery. That a man is
saved or lost, good or bad, by decree of an
external power is a contradiction. We may
accept a mystery — a contradiction, never.

<3utoance 69

God's will, working in some mysterious way
with man's will, directs the events of his life.
In the supreme moral choice, the attitude of
his will toward the moral law, that which
determines man's character and destiny,
man is absolutely free.

For the rest, who of us could wish or dare
to be left alone to his own choice where to
go and what to do ? One alone in all the
universe has power and wisdom, and that
power and wisdom is ready for the service
of the weakest and the lowest of us. Yet we
rebel against control, so slow to learn the
lesson that we are not fit to walk alone. One
would think it the simplest and easiest of all
lessons — yes, and the sweetest, too. Our
greedy passions are stronger than our faith
and love.

It is life that makes faith hard. No; the
lesson is not easy, after all. It is hard to see
all things go wrong. It is hard to see the
good cause fail. It is hard to see the wicked
triumph. It is hard to be compelled by what
we call the force of circumstances to do one
thing while it seems so plain that we ought
to be doing another.

70 Gbe %ove of tbe IKflorlo

Yet how foolish to fancy that we know
how things ought to go ; know what is fail-
ure or what is success, what is good for us
to do. One knows. When we have learned
to know him and to trust him, then life is
sweet, then the yoke is easy and the burden
light. We still long for many things, but we
do not chafe or fret.

Ask him not, then, when or how,
Only bow.

Chapter XXIII. — The Prayers of the
Innocent

" God be merciful to me a sinner" is the
undertone of all our praying. Often it is the
only form of words our lips can frame. So
inwrought is this petition in our very thought
of prayer, that we scarce conceive of any
prayer without it, except as pharisaical.
What warrant have we, because we are
sinners, to narrow our conception of the
communion of the created spirit with the
uncreated to that which is appropriate to
sinners ?

Gbe praters of tbe Unnocent 71

There are, perhaps, in the universe, multi-
tudes of innocent children of the Father.
How do they pray ? The thought fascinates.
How awful, how forever unattainable to us,
to adore the divine righteousness, themselves
also from the beginning of their existence
perfect in righteousness; to pray for the
bringing into the kingdom of all who are
outside, themselves never having been out-
side ; to submit to the divine will, conscious
that they never have rebelled; to ask for
bread, without the thought that they have
grieved the love that gives it ; to dread temp-
tation, yet not to shudder as those who have
been vanquished by it. Only one petition of
the perfect prayer need they omit, yet for us
the spirit of that one petition runs through all
the rest. He that must once say, " Forgive,"
can never again say any words just as before.

Ah, my soul, think not these thoughts too
far. " Never again" is all too sad a word.
The Father would not have thee over-
shadow with the remembrance of infinite loss
the infinite gain of thy redemption. If to
have thee back again is enough for him, let
it be enough for thee.

72 XLbc Hove of tbe TiEiorlo

Chapter XXIV.— One of Us

" Did one of us," said my little friend
— trying to make the evolution idea throw
some light upon his deepest problem — " Did
one of us get to be God ? " Not that, my
child. We must be content if they will let
us believe that we have gotten to be man.
The child had evidently some dim idea that
we are something else than a collection of
individuals. And so, my little man, if we
ever do rise to a higher plane of develop-
ment, it will be the indissoluble body of
us, and not any one alone.

One of us ! Oh, to discern the relation
between that one, absolutely separate and
alone, which each knows himself to be, and
that race-unit which we quite as surely are.
How shall a man reach the highest which
is possible to him ? A prophet of culture
will bid him isolate himself, think his own
thought, live his own life, " demand not that
the things without him yield him love,
amusement, sympathy." " Who finds him-
self." says such a teacher. " loses his misery."

©ne of XXs 73

On the contrary, a prophet of humanity
would have us seek a common, not a sepa-
rate, good,

And move together, gathering a new soul —
The soul of multitudes.

"Men live together; they think alone,"
says the philosopher, uttering a partial truth
which does not solve the problem. It is
only in our systems that the intellect is a
separate department of man's nature. We
live together, and by the same token we
may not think alone. It is the race which
thinks. It is the race which is attaining
truth. The spirit of the age, the temper of
its mind, appears in the bootblack as well
as in the system-maker. There is no more
pitiful thing upon this pitiful earth than pride
of intellect.

In a very limited sense can it be said that
" man thinks alone." He grasps such ideas
as are at hand, and handles them according
to his power and the earnestness of his en-
deavor. To think is a sacred duty, and
every man is left alone to do that duty or
to leave it undone, as in all other moral
choices. No other can act for him, no other

74 Gbe %ove of tbe 'OClorlD

can reach conclusions for him. But let no
man dare the attempt to isolate his thought.
The result of that attempt is always some
strange thing, a thing without life. Men
wonder, and smile, and pass on. One man
alone has scant material for thought. A
widening experience is the mightiest over-
thrower of conclusions. One day of deep
emotional experience may scatter the results
of many days of careful and consistent rea-
soning. Thus it is that there are systems of
doctrine mailed in invulnerable logic, where
the intellect can find no flaw7, against wThich,
nevertheless, the soul of man has rebelled
and will rebel. Some have said, therefore,
that logic is misleading, and our reasoning
powers are not to be trusted. Not so. The
Maker has not given us a will-o'-the-wisp
for our guidance. The syllogism is a perfect
instrument, and like all instruments has a
limited value. A perfect chisel cannot hew
a marble statue out of a block of wood.
Correct syllogisms do not insure infallible
conclusions. What we want is more of that
rich tide of sympathy, the common life-blood
wThich flows through the universe of being —

QelW&bnegation 7S

yes, the universe of being, for not even the
race of man is a unity large enough. It is
not enough for a man to find himself; or
rather no man truly finds himself until he
finds himself to be simply one of us.

Chapter XXV. — Self-abnegation

Jesus taught self-sacrifice; self-abnegation
he did not teach. "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself." If, then, I am not to
love myself at all, how much am I to love
my neighbor? "It is more blessed to give
than to receive." If, then, it is not blessed
to receive, where is the blessedness of giving?
"Whosoever will lose his life for my sake,
the same shall save it." The life is of worth;
it is not destroyed, but given; it is not given
for the sake of giving, nor because we have
learned not to prize it, but "for my sake";
and it is saved to the individual soul.

There are those who have taught the an-
nihilation of self as the purest and most ex-
alted form of Christian doctrine. " Yet Paul

76 Cbe %ove of tbe Tlfilorlo

does not summon us to give up our rights.
Love strikes much deeper. It would have
us not seek them at all, ignore them, elimi-
nate the personal element altogether from our
calculations." " The more difficult thing still
is not to seek things for ourselves at all."
" The most obvious lesson in Christ's teach-
ing is that there is no happiness in having
and getting anything, but only in giving."
This teaching may be pure and lofty, but it
is not Christian teaching. Not only is it not
the most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching;
it is not in Christ's teaching at all. Jesus
never taught anything that is unreasonable
or impossible. To require that which cannot
be done is to require that which ought not
to be done, and the result is to debase char-
acter, not to uplift it. If men accept in
theory any other rule than that reasonable
rule of right conduct to which every one can
conform, they in fact release themselves from
all obligation. They readily excuse them-
selves for base living, because the thing
which they conceive to be noble is beyond
them. An impracticable law is practical
lawlessness.

5elf=Bbnegation 77

Eliminate the personal element? The
personal self is that to which all values stand
related. To eliminate it would leave a value-
less universe. If I blot out myself, and
you blot out yourself, there is nobody left
in existence. If there is no happiness in
getting, giving resolves itself into this : for
the sake of my own happiness in giving it,
I give you something which wall bring you
no happiness in getting it. This is the ex-
treme of selfishness. Upon so vicious a circle
do we start in trying to attain extreme un-
selfishness by self-abnegation.

We have indeed the utmost need to strive
after unselfishness. How attain it ? Not by
ceasing to seek or find profit and gratification
for ourselves. The good God has made
that impossible. Not one of us can live a
day without seeking and finding profit and
pleasure in the simplest and most necessary
acts. How, then, become unselfish, if not
by annihilating self? By remembering that
I am one small self among myriads of other
selves. How lightly weighs my good against
that of a hundred others close about mel
Let me not grasp after my own so eagerly,

78 Gbe JLove of tbe TKHorlo

hold it so near, that it will make me blind
to all the rest. I would not prize less the
things for which I long, but I would see
more clearly how you prize the things for
which you long. Oh, to see values not from
the standpoint of one soul, but from the
standpoint of many souls! Then would the
demon of selfishness be cast out, then might
one reach that glad, free, calm, and unfretted
life which knows its great treasure, the
happiness of the many, to be beyond all
risk of loss, in the eternal purpose of God.

Chapter XXVI. — Inasmuch as Ye Did
it Not

Master, I have this day broken no law of
the ten, have hurt no one. Is it enough ?

Child, there stood one at thy side burdened
with heavy tasks of lowly, earthly labor.
For a little help, a little easing of the burden,
he looked to thee. Thou hadst time and
strength.

Master, I did not see.

Thine eyes were turned within. There

•ffnasmucb aa J2e 2>i& ft IRot 79

was an ignorant one crying from out his
darkness, "Will none teach me?" I have
given thee knowledge.

Master, I did not hear.

Thine ear was dull. There came a guest
to seek thy converse, a human friend in quest
of fellowship. I marked thy sigh, thy frown.
Why was thy heart not glad ?

I was reading. I hate to be disturbed, to
be called from great thoughts to trifling talk.

The children would have had thee some
few moments in their play. Without thee
they went wrong — how far wrong thou wilt
not know. It is too late.

Child's play? But I was searching for a
hidden truth of spiritual import.

Thou didst not turn aside to lift that lame
one who had fallen by the way.

I was in haste to do what I had planned.
I meant to help him when I should return.

Another lifted him. And shall I question
further? Dost thou not yet see? Child, my
heart yearns over thee. Dost say thou hast
hurt none to-day? Thou hast hurt many,
and thyself not least. Not one of the ten
laws hast thou broken ? Thou hast robbed

8o Gbe TLove of tbe IHflorlD

these thy brothers of that which I did give
to thee in trust for them. In all thy eager
grasping to save thy life thou hast this day
lost it. Thou art smaller, poorer, blinder
than this morn thou wert, after all thy read-
ing, thinking, planning, doing.' Where, where
this day has been thy loving? When thou
dost ask, " Is it enough ? " there thou dost
hurt me. Enough ? Dost thou then grudge ?
Wilt thou weigh and measure ? Wilt thou
bargain with me ? Art thou looking for a
least requirement ? Child, thou grievest me
much.

Master, love me still and teach me, for I
have the more need.

Fear not; I will not leave thee. Thou
shalt one day know what it is to love.

Chapter XXVIL— Giving

There is a pride which debases — the
spirit which scorns or condescends to con-
verse with an inferior. There is a pride
which ennobles — the spirit which scorns a

living 81

mean act. Perchance the pride which de-
bases is baser when it condescends than
when it scorns. He who gives in conde-
scension is too proud. He who will not
take as a gift that which he needs and can-
not get by his own labor is too proud. He
who is ready to take from the product of
another's labor that which he is too indolent
to win for himself is not proud enough.

Every man who is doing honest work in
the world is giving. Some of us are getting
far more than we are giving. Some are get-
ting almost nothing. How things are to be
made more even is the question. Whether
it can be done by more giving depends
upon the way of giving.

Giving is not a condescension. I must not
assume that because another man is poorer
than I, I have a right to give him some-
thing. To fling him an alms may be an in-
sult. A gift may serve only to degrade him.
Let me look carefully at myself, at him, and
at the gift, before I dare bestow. Some of
us have been too prone to think it quite
proper that we should have most of the
good things, and should bestow of our su-
ii

82 £be %ove of tbe TUUorlD

perfluity upon the rest of mankind, while
they, duly feeling their dependence upon
our bounty, are grateful. Perhaps, were the
situation reversed, we should not be so
ready to accept it. We are very willing to
take for ourselves the more blessed part, the
part of the giver, and then to make a virtue
of it. We expect others to be thankful for
being in a position which we are glad we
are not in. Wre talk quite glibly about " the
lower classes," as if any one of us could
define the lower classes. There are natural
inequalities among men, since some are
stronger, mentally and bodily, than others.
But most of the inequalities are factitious.
Since they have been made, they can be
unmade. How often has society presented
us the spectacle of a child of the lowest
ancestry attaining wealth, power, learning,
refinement, virtue? We are of one blood.
There are no lower classes.

" The rich and poor meet together; the
Lord is the Maker of them all." And in
what spirit shall they meet together to wor-
ship their Maker? Shall the one say, "Sen-
sible of my superiority, yet knowing that we

<3ivir\Q 83

are equal before God, I come down to
worship with you. We meet on a level
here"; and the other, "Sensible of my in-
feriority, I yet make bold to worship with
you " ? Such condescension and servility are
more shocking here than anywhere else.
Such a spirit shows an utter ignorance of
true relations. It is to say, " There is a
great, essential, and enduring difference be-
tween you and me ; yet there is one ground
upon which we can meet." It is to say that
we are not of one blood.

The truth is that our equality far tran-
scends our inequality. Before the respect
due to personality, all differences and dis-
tinctions, natural and artificial, pass out of
sight. Every person has the same separate
existence, the same absolute moral sover-
eignty, the same inalienable rights.

Love is the heart and soul of all giving
that is profitable to men. " Though I be-
stow all my goods to feed the poor, and
though I give my body to be burned, and
have not love, it profiteth me nothing." It
may also profit nothing those who receive
the gift. It may be even ruinous to them.

84 Cbe %ove of tbe Morlo

He who loves will give nothing vainly,
nothing proudly, nothing carelessly, nothing
for the mere pleasure of giving. He will
give not merely his spare pence, but his
thoughts, his heart, his life.

The one gift, after all, is the gift of a
man's self for use and helpfulness. The rich
man who gives much money with earnest
care and thought to make it do the most
good is giving himself. The poor man who
can give no money, if he is giving faithful
work, is giving himself. The gifts are sub-
stantially equal. Hence disappears that
seeming division into givers and receivers
of charities. We are all givers, all of us
who are honest and faithful. May the day
come when the getting will be as equal as
the giving is.

Chapter XXVIII. — Competition

Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.

Desire was implanted in our very nature
by the divine wisdom of the Creator. There-
fore none can say desire is sinful, but only

Competition 85

that indulgence of desire may, under certain
conditions, be sinful. The desire to out-
strip another in getting that which we can-
not both have, may we doubt whether that
also is natural and necessary ? Must it be
our rule of life? Must we fight for the
prizes ?

The idea seems inconsistent with the
thought that we are one family, children of
a common Father. Surely, in a family it is
not thought necessary or right to compete.
If there are two children, and only bread
enough for one, must each strive to grasp
the whole, and must it go to the stronger
and quicker ? Is this a law of nature which
cannot be set aside without danger to the
constitution of the family ? I will not dare
to ask the deeper question how there can
be an all-powerful and loving Father who
provides but half enough bread.

Are we in literal fact one family, children
of a common Father, or is that but an im-
perfect analogy ? One hesitates to say that
the whole teaching of Jesus is based upon a
figure of speech. No ; let us not say that.
His teaching is simple and true. Both the

86 Gbe %ox>c ot tbe THaorto

broader and the minuter applications of it
are extremely difficult and complex. The
world has during these centuries been ad-
vancing slowly and surely in making these
applications. There were social institutions
in the early centuries that were universally
supposed to be natural and necessary, which
our age has seen overthrown by this very
doctrine of human brotherhood. Society
has survived their overthrow. Men are to-
day striving to work out new applications
of the principles of Jesus. It may be that
another generation will see results. It may
be we shall one day cease to live by snatch-
ing the bread from our brother's mouth.
"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,
which a woman took, and hid in three mea-
sures of meal, till the whole was leavened."

Chapter XXIX. — This World and
Another

" I am glad there is immortality, but
would have tested it myself before intrust-
ing him." Thus it is with us. " There is

Gbis TMorlO and Bnotber 87

immortality," we say ; " there is undoubt-
edly." And then we fall a-doubting. All
those speculative arguments with which for
ages mankind have been trying to support
hope do little to cure us of this habit. Nor
can I think that we shall ever, by weigh-
ing and measuring, prove the existence of
spirit unembodied or disembodied.

One thing at least is certain: there is
something beyond, or there is nothing here.
We have set our standard of values in the
hope of immortality. All the satisfactions of
this present life, sweet as they are, are in-
finitely less than our craving. Perchance
they satisfy the brute. We know not the
mind of the brute. Is there for us anything
beyond ? Since Jesus says our life does not
end with the death of the body, I am con-
tent to believe him in that as in other things.

About the nature of the life after death
we are told very little, chiefly this — that
the character we form here we carry with
us there. Had it been important for us to
know more, it seems likely that we should
have been told more. It is an unfit subject
for dogmatism, but the mind inevitably

Cbe %ovc of tbe morlo

forms its conceptions, consonant with its
ideas of God and man, its hopes, its long-
ings, and its fears.

Some conceive death as the entering of
the soul into a haven of rest. Others think
that we shall

Strive and thrive, speed — fight on, fare ever
There as here.

" My Father worketh hitherto," says Jesus,
" and I work." Shall we not also work ?
Why should I think that I shall be at all
different the moment after death from what
I was the moment before ? And if we are
the same, shall we not still need to be strug-
gling upward, to help and save one another?

Thou shalt be still a child of God as thou
art here. What wilt thou have ? Rest ?
Thou art even now at rest in the bosom of
God. Joy ? Thinkest thou there is greater
joy than the joy of serving ? Thou hast it
here. Home ? " He that dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty." Thou
hast long dwelt at home. The presence of
God ? He is all-present to thee here and

Cbte llClorlD and Bnotber

now. To behold his face ? Death will give
thee no new eyes. Look, if thou wouldst
behold him. Freedom from pain? Who
knows if thou mayest have that ? If thou
shouldst die to-night, wilt thou need no
more refining in the furnace ? And even if
thou sufferest no more, wilt thou feel no
pain for others' woes ? Is it then freedom
from sin for which thou art longing ? Who
is Death that he should have power sud-
denly to free thee from sin ? Art thou not
gaining step by step a constancy in sinless-
ness, and can it be won otherwise than step
by step though thou shouldst die to-night ?

And is this all ? Is there no consumma-
tion, no " far-off, divine event " ? It is
written, "There shall be no more curse."
What does that mean ? I cannot tell what
it means. He who wrote it seems to think
there will still be some accursed.

" In the dispensation of the fulness of times
he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which
are on earth." " He will swallow up death
in victory ; and the Lord God will wipe
away tears from off all faces." I dare not
12

9o Gbe TLove of tbe HBlorlo

say that these words mean what the heart
could wish them to mean. Can God finally
conquer even the most hardened ? We
know not. How can we know when he has
not told us? Could it be so, that were
a home-coming indeed, perfect joy, tears
wiped from off all faces. If it can never be,
my Lord, I ask no perfect joy, I can con-
ceive of none. If there be any yet in sin,
thou wilt not cease to weep ; I ask to weep
with thee.

Chapter XXX. — The Kingdom

The world is good; beauty and wealth
and knowledge and power, they are all good,
to be desired and to be enjoyed. What
then? Get and keep and live at ease ? No;
that is death, not life. Get and give, not
get and keep, is the law of the universe.
How ignoble that ancient conception of
divinity, " the ever-living gods who dwell at
ease."

The man, that only lives and loves an hour,
Seem'd nobler than their hard Eternities.

Gbe IKtnQDom 91

The Deity is not an idle monarch, pleased
with contemplating his own glory, and creat-
ing a universe of suffering and struggling
beings to promote his glory and self-satis-
faction. He is not content to abide in a
blissful heaven. He is among us as one
that serveth. Woe to that man who will
not also serve, for he shall die. There is a
kingdom, and it is coming. It is in our
power to hasten it or to retard it, not to
stop it. It is the kingdom of God and his
loving subjects. If a man will take his place
in that kingdom and work together with
God and his fellow-men to put an end to
sin and suffering, he shall live and grow, and
he shall yet rejoice to see the kingdom come.
If a man will cut himself off from that fel-
lowship, and try to attain to something by
himself, he shall fail. He may take his ease
in his wealth, and care not who is poor
while he is rich ; he may take his ease in
his learning, and care not who is ignorant
while he is learned ; he may take his ease
in his religion, and care not who is lost if
he is saved; he may take his ease in his
virtue, and care not who is wicked if he is

92 £be %ovc of tbe MorlD

upright. He will lose his soul. Neither
his money, nor his learning, nor his piety,
nor his virtue, shall save him. There is
no life for any single man apart from the
life of all other men. Our own soul, our
own family, our own church, our own coun-
try, will not be safe till the world is safe.
Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us not
think that by shutting out what is corrupt
we can keep sound that which is within.
The law of the kingdom will not be broken.
We are all bound together. If we will not
lift our neighbor up, he shall drag us down.
Would we be clean, we and our own be-
loved? We must cleanse all the vileness
in the world.

The kingdom is surely coming, God's
blessed kingdom of love and joy. O my
soul, wilt thou have thy place within or
without ? Choose between life and death.
Arouse thee, work, for the time is at hand.
" He which testifieth these things saith,
' Surely, I come quickly.' Even so, come,
Lord Jesus."